Springfield, IL — Twenty concerned citizens occupied Illinois Governor Pat. Quinn’s office Tuesday to protest his support of a state bill to regulate hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.” After being refused a request for a meeting to discuss the matter with the Governor, three people locked arms and sat down in the middle of the entrance to the Governor’s office to demand that the Governor meet with affected communities to discuss the need for a moratorium on the practice, and that he rethink his support of state bill 1715, a bill to regulate fracking. One person refused to leave and was arrested.  Governor Quinn has publicly stated that he intends to sign the bill once it has passed through the senate and house.

Hydraulic fracturing is a method for obtaining oil and gas in which large amounts of fresh water, sand and chemicals are combined and forced down a well to fracture underground shale rock to release otherwise trapped fossil fuels. Air and water pollution have been linked to fracking in states like Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

The occupation of the governor’s office was part of a day of action that included a press conference, legislative committee testimony, and citizen lobbying. Citizens came from all over the state to voice their discontent with plans to allow fracking in Illinois.

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Two protesters locked to equipment being used to drain wetlands to build a US-101 highway bypass in Willits, CA, May 20, 2013

Undaunted by a string of recent treesit evictions, opponents of the US-101 highway bypass in Willits, California are continuing the struggle.

A treesit remains in place directly in the path where Caltrans plans to destroy a grove of wetlands trees. And on Monday, a lockdown by just two activists successfully disrupted construction work for a day.

To learn more, visit Save Little Lake Valley.

A duck covered in tar sands oil from the Mar 29, 2013 Exxon spill in Mayflower, AR

Two recent stories about the dirty tricks used by fuel companies in their pursuit of profit:

• Internal ExxonMobil documents acquired by Greenpeace show that—surprise surprise!—the company deliberately downplayed the extent to which tar sands oil had contaminated local waterways in the wake of the Mayflower, Arkansas pipeline spill.

• DeSmogBlog has released a spoof video (Frackalypse Now) that features the details of how the fracking industry contracted Army and Marine veterans to wage illegal PsyOps counterinsurgency campaigns against fracking activists in Pennsylvania.

It’s been a disturbing but revealing couple of weeks as far as the Obama administration’s energy policy goes.  Also, note the reference to rare earth elements in the second story.

• Yesterday, DeSmogBlog revealed that the Obama administration’s new draft rules to clear the way for public lands fracking were actually written by Exxon and the corporate-front group the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

• A week ago, the administration released a “National Strategy for the Arctic Region” that, while giving lip service to environmental conservation, actually focuses on how the U.S. can seize control over fuel and mineral resources lying beneath the Arctic Ocean floor, now that global warming and the melting of sea ice have made these more accessible. In the report’s own words:

Scientific estimates of technically recoverable conventional oil and gas resources north of the Arctic Circle total approximately 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered gas deposits, as well as vast quantities of mineral resources, including rare earth elements, iron ore, and nickel. These estimates have inspired fresh ideas for commercial initiatives and infrastructure development in the region.

Meanwhile, the effects of oil exploration and global warming are devastating indigenous communities across the Arctic. Today, representatives of indigenous communities confronted Shell at its annual general meeting, demanding an end to its destructive practices in the Arctic and the Alberta Tar Sands.

• The largest uranium mine in the U.S. is currently planned for a national forest in New Mexico, in spite of strong opposition from indigenous and environmental groups. Public comment on the draft environmental impact statement closes in mid-June.

From the Earth First! Newswire:

[Occupy the Pipeline] took to the high seas [last night] to interrupt the New York League of Conservation Voters’ Spring Gala, which was funded by the hydro fracking industry and thrown in honor of Michael Bloomberg.

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A giant pile of waste left over from tar sands processing … destined to be burned as even dirtier fuel outside the U.S.

From the New York Times, by way of the Earth First! Newswire:

by Ian Austen

WINDSOR, Ontario — Assumption Park gives residents of this city lovely views of the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit skyline. Lately they’ve been treated to another sight: a three-story pile of petroleum coke covering an entire city block on the other side of the Detroit River.

Detroit’s ever-growing black mountain is the unloved, unwanted and long overlooked byproduct of Canada’s oil sands boom.

And no one knows quite what to do about it, except Koch Carbon, which owns it.

The company is controlled by Charles and David Koch, wealthy industrialists who back a number of conservative and libertarian causes including activist groups that challenge the science behind climate change. The company sells the high-sulfur, high-carbon waste, usually overseas, where it is burned as fuel.

The coke comes from a refinery alongside the river owned by Marathon Petroleum, which has been there since 1930. But it began refining exports from the Canadian oil sands — and producing the waste that is sold to Koch — only in November.

“What is really, really disturbing to me is how some companies treat the city of Detroit as a dumping ground,” said Rashida Tlaib, the Michigan state representative for that part of Detroit. “Nobody knew this was going to happen.” Almost 56 percent of Canada’s oil production is from the petroleum-soaked oil sands of northern Alberta, more than 2,000 miles north.

An initial refining process known as coking, which releases the oil from the tarlike bitumen in the oil sands, also leaves the petroleum coke, of which Canada has 79.8 million tons stockpiled. Some is dumped in open-pit oil sands mines and tailing ponds in Alberta. Much is just piled up there.

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A Dine (Navajo) elder confronts Peabody Coal over its strip mining practices, January 2013

From the Earth First! Newswire:

SINCE 1974, Public Law 93-531 (the relocation law) has forcefully relocated tens of thousands of  Dineh (Navajo) and several hundred Hopi people from their ancestral homeland in Arizona.  Generations have been impacted by the loss of grazing areas and the intentional break up of this community. This is the largest relocation of Indigenous people in this country since the Trail of Tears and it is ongoing.  This corporate colonialism was falsely presented to the outside world as a land dispute between the Dineh and Hopi.

This genocidal policy was crafted by government agents and energy company representatives in order to gain access to the mineral resources of Black Mesa – billions of tons of low sulfur coal. For over 30 years, traditional Dine’ at Black Mesa have lived in resistance, steadfastly refusing to relocate as strip-mines rip apart their sacred lands and generating plants poison the desert air.

Led by Big Mountain/Black Mesa community members and in collaboration with organizers from other front line resistance communities, Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS) is coordinating a land-based gathering on Black Mesa from June 3-9th. A Black Mesa community member is using a four directions planning model to guide the process of shaping the goals, conversations, projects, and structure of the gathering. A family who has been resisting forced relocation for over four decades due to Peabody Coal Mine’s operations has offered to host the gathering. Work such as rebuilding roads, hogans, corals, shearing and herding sheep, and planting corn will connect participants to resistance based in a traditional, land-based lifeway.

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The government won’t put an end to fracking. Will you?

As expected based on prior insider statements and President Obama’s Energy Secretary pick,  the administration continues to pave the way for a fracking boom on public lands.

From Common Dreams:

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management released new draft rules for fracking on public lands Thursday afternoon that would vastly weaken safeguards against the highly toxic gas extraction process, which has already done untold damage to public water, land and air.

“Comparing today’s rule governing fracking on public lands with the one proposed a year earlier, it is clear what happened: the [BLM] caved to the wealthy and powerful oil and gas industry and left the public to fend for itself,” Legislative Representative for Earthjustice Jessica Ennis stated.

As Earthjustice reports, the new version “eliminates protections included in the version proposed last year and fails to include safeguards demanded by environmental and public health advocates.”

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Guajajara and Awa people occupy a railroad owned by mining giant Vale in protest of laws designed to open more indigenous land to exploitation, Oct 2, 2012.

The following article gives a good overview of the massive extractivism taking place in Brazil (falsely reported as “industrialization”). It points out that the products of Brazil’s mines and other exploitive projects are, in fact, destined for export rather than to provide any domestic benefit. This shows how even one of the world’s most praised “rising economic stars” is still trapped in the same  old colonialist paradigm.

From America Latina en Movimiento:

Brazil, the biggest extractivist in South America

Eduardo Gudynas

Extractivism is the appropriation of huge volumes of natural resources or their intensive exploitation, most of them exported as raw materials to global markets. It seems to have gone unnoticed that by this definition the major extractivist in South America is Brazil.

This is not always recognized. When we talk of extractivism, we think firstly of mining and then it will be said that the outstanding examples are countries like Chile, Peru or Bolivia. In the popular imagery, these Andean nations are thought of as the leading miners on the continent, if not the world.

The reality in recent years is otherwise. Brazil has become the biggest mining producer and exporter on the continent. In 2011 it extracted more than 410 million tons of its major minerals, while all of the other South American nations, combined, mined a little less than 147 million tons. These statistics apply to the extraction in South America of copper, zinc, lead, tin, bauxite, coal and iron — the major minerals by volume of extraction and export. It is striking to note that Brazil extracts almost three times the total of all the other South American countries that have significant mining activity: Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Surinam and Venezuela.

These enormous volumes in Brazil are derived especially from iron and bauxite mining. But Brazil is also the country with one of the most diversified baskets of mining production; it is also a major producer of coal, lead, some “rare earths,” etc. Nor is it only recently that Brazil has become the largest mining country in the continent; by 2000 it was already extracting double the volume of all the other South American countries.

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The Keystone tar sands pipeline was rejected by 10 sovereign indigenous nations on May 16, 2013

From Huffington Post:

The State Department, still with “egg on its face” from its statement that Keystone XL would have little impact on climate change, sunk a little lower today as the most respected elders, and chiefs of 10 sovereign nations turned their backs on State Department representatives and walked out during a meeting. The meeting, which was a failed attempt at a “nation to nation” tribal consultation concerning the Keystone XL Pipeline neglected to address any legitimate concerns being raised by First Nations Leaders (or leading scientific experts for that matter).

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